Tori arrived at the gardens two hours before dusk. She was sure to find a few refugees gardening their boxes after work that Friday evening. Scott had told her that Friday, late afternoon, would be the best time to catch people.

That statement proved true. With the gravel parking lot full, Tori needed to park across the street. The bird-chirp of the cross-walk got Tori hopping. It was a comforting sound; giving her permission to travel north or south, as a bird’s migratory flight pattern. She walked south toward chatter and laughter.

Tori delighted to find the garden overflowing with chipper movement. Unfortunately, she felt like a leper, with an unsightly cold sore burning into her lower lip. It was on the mend, but still reminiscent of a boil on the face of the Princess Bride’s torturer.

As she slowly wound her way through the maze of boxes, Tori was ushered by a broad-shouldered, sixty-something-year-old man to the benches under the training pergola.

“I’ll tell you my story,” he said in a Baltic accent.

“Okay,” Tori smiled, nodding. Everyone seemed to be watching her attentively.

“They had us down on our knees. They stood behind us with machine guns pointed at our heads and yelled, ‘Shoot!’”

“Shoot what?” Tori’s voice grew squeaky, and her hands trembled.

“Our own people. If we didn’t shoot our brothers, then they would shoot us from behind.”

Tori placed her twitching hand over his and looked him in the eyes. “Where are you from?”

“Bosnia.”

A tall African man, with dotted, raised scars on his forehead, sat next to the Bosnian. Tori nodded a greeting to him. “And where are you from?”

“Sudan. Every day I pray when we walk from Sudan to Kenya. The soldiers try to protect us, but government still attack us from the sky and land. Many die while we walk, and many rape. UN drop food for us. We pray to thank God for this. We stay in camp for ten years.”

“Isn’t Sudan, like—a thousand miles from Kenya?” Tori’s heart felt as if it were being pulled apart. “Ten years? In a refugee camp?”

“Good story.” He smiled. “God help us get here. Now we happy, healthy. Healthy with garden,” he said, raising his arms, and motioning to the gardens surrounding them. “Now we thank God every day for helping us be in this country. We have peace.”

The Bosnian patted the Sudanese man on the shoulder and nodded.

A dark, beautiful woman with a colorful head wrap came to the Sudanese’s side. “Husband, what are you talking of? This nice woman come to help in garden. I met interview lady yesterday. This is volunteer.”

The Bosnian stood. “You are not here to write book?”

“No,” she admitted. Her mind sparked with understanding. The business card that she and Gussie had found in her study belonged to Annie. Annie was the one the refugees were waiting for to tell their stories to. Tori acknowledged the unwitting bombarded of the wrong woman with a nod of her head.

He shrugged his shoulders with reluctant acceptance. “Okay.”

And with that, the men were gone.

The colorful woman took her by the arm. “Come, see my box.”

“Yes! Can I help you plant?” Tori would get her hands dirty.

A deep laugh oscillated through the cheerful woman’s handsome skin. Her body’s motions resembled the shaking dance moves of Shakira, the world-renowned vocalist.

“Come. Help.” She smiled, revealing teeth which had been filed down to soft points.

“I’m Tori.”

“Anita,” she said, bringing a hand to her chest. “And my husband, Patrick.”

“Does your family call you Anita and Patrick?” Tori tried to word her question, as to not give offense. Their names didn’t sound very African.

“Uduru, me. And NaNomi, him,” she said, gesturing to her husband. “When we become citizens, we change names to names used in Sudan and here. We like both.”

“Me too. Anita and Uduru are both beautiful names.”

Anita blinked her long, curly lashes as she gave a shy smile and handed Tori a plastic baggie of seeds.

Tori shook the bag. “What are we planting today?”

“Eruca, corchorus, portulaca, and tomato.”

“Tomato, I understand.”

She smiled, “Eruca, arugula, I think you say. Corchorus, herb tea, and make baskets with. It is first time I try to grow here, and portulaca,” Anita looked to her side. “People here think it is a weed, but it is very good for the body. Old Greeks eat it for strength.”

Tori pictured in her mind an elderly Greek man sitting on the edge of a Santorini cliff, harvesting the weed to add to his salad for strength. She was convinced Anita meant that it was eaten since the times of ancient Greece, but perhaps she meant both.

Tori sat at the corner of the pristine box. It was one of the more well-manicured vegetable plots in the garden. Half of the box held rows of green onions and sprawling, spider-like plants, woken from their winter hibernation. The other half was recently tilled and fertilized. The scent of freshly watered earth invigorated her senses. Tori held the baggie in the air. “How deep do we plant these?”

“I show you.” Anita made two long lines in the dirt, on either side of the trickle irrigation tube. She then spat into her palm, and sprinkled several seeds into her saliva. She motioned with her head for Tori to do the same.

Tori hesitated, but then slowly released what small amount of spit she could muster into her hand. She quickly poured several seeds into her open palm, then carefully placed the seeds into the carved dirt.

“You need to drink more water,” Anita said, shaking her head in obvious disappointment at Tori’s low amount of saliva.

“Sorry, I don’t spit very…” she looked up at Anita, trying to find the words.

Her new friend’s eyes sparkled with merriment and she sported a broad smile. Tori was sometimes slow to realize when someone was teasing her. She smiled back.

Anita continued spitting and planting. She had finished her line several minutes before Tori, but, thankfully, did not disrupt Tori’s new-found system of spitting, rubbing, then covering.

Anita leaned down, took a handful of dirt in her hands, rubbed it into her palms, then brought it up to her nose—as if she were determining its effectiveness through its scent. “You are one with us. I like you.”

“It’s good dirt?”

Anita laughed. “I like you, Tori, not dirt.”

“Oh. Thank you,” she said, feeling sheepish. “I like you too. Is your family here in Salt Lake?”

“They are gone,” Anita said, her voice shaking.

Tori took in a slow breath. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Patrick is strong man. He run ten kilometers holding me in his arms after they attack us. I cried. Tell him, let me stay with my mother and sisters, but my mother tell him to go.” Anita wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “We all have loss. We all can never go home.” Anita’s face slowly turned to the patches of the garden, as if she knew every story. “We all ooboo oontoo.”

“What is ooboo oontoo?”

“It is old word in my language, for human. Something computer too,” she said, waving her hands in the air, as if to dismiss the second meaning.

“Oh, Ubuntu. My computer programmer, nerdy brother talks about Ubuntu all the time. But how does the open source software relate to humanity?”

“Start to mean more than just human with revolution to stop apartheid happen in South Africa. It more means now, we are better together, whole.” Anita reached for Tori’s arm. “I am better, because you, Tori.”

Tori’s heart no longer felt as if it were being torn apart. It had not only melted back together, it now seared with compassion for her new friends.

“Zee coming!” Anita shouted, looking toward the side street. Three similar rental cars pulled along the side of the gardens and parked.

“What? Zee?” How did Anita know Zee? A light suddenly lit in her mind. That’s it. Zee and Annie were interviewing together. Tori wanted to kick herself for being so slow at times. She scanned the gardens. He wasn’t anywhere in sight, but there were two camera crews who had already set-up. Zee was sure to be in the gardens soon enough. Then, the realization of her messy hair, and, oh no, her hideous cold sore.

“Anita, he can’t see me like this,” Tori exclaimed, motioning to her body and face.

“You like Zee?”

This wasn’t good. She had just announced to the garden that she had a crush on Zee, but there was no going back now. “Yes. I think I do.”

“I help you,” Anita said, unravelling her head wrap from her hair.

“What are you doing?” Tori laughed as Anita began the process of hiding Tori’s hair and lower face.

“This too.” Anita emptied the contents of a large, colorful shoulder bag into her gardening pail. “Keep. We now friends. Ubuntu.”

Tori looked down at her Hermes purse. It had cost more than a luxury SUV. She wiggled off the hesitation and poured the contents of her purse into her new shoulder bag as she giggled nervously. The thought of this new way of thinking and feeling produced an almost euphoric thrill in her. She slowly handed her Hermes over to Anita.

Anita shook her head. “No. No exchange. Gift.”

“Gift,” Tori said, turning to leave. “Ubuntu.” she smiled and waved.

Tori began crossing the street in front of the gardens the moment an additional car pulled up along the street behind her. She glanced back as Annie and Zee exited the black SUV. Tori’s anticipation mounted, causing her to stumble slightly. What was wrong with her? She had basically told Zee she wasn’t interested. She could lie to him, but she couldn’t lie to herself. She would see Zee at the color run in a few days. She needed to get a grip on her emotions before she saw him again.

On her drive back up the winding canyon, Tori mulled over her conversations in the garden. How do they possibly live with all that heartache, and still give and smile?

If ever there were an aha moment in Tori’s life, it was right then. They smile, because they give.

Ethan’s ringtone interrupted the soft music on the radio. “Hey, bud. What are you guys up to?”

“I’m home now. Zach decided to go to a movie with his family?”

“You didn’t want to go?”

“No. It didn’t sound that good.”

“Is it violent?”

“I think so.”

Ethan never liked the same violent or gory flicks that Zach was into. Tori recently allowed him to view movies with PG-13 ratings. She typically helped him decide which ones were, or were not, appropriate.

“Are you hungry, sweetie?”

“Yeah. Are you making dinner tonight?”

“I thought I’d pick something up. Do you want pizza, or maybe a burrito?”

“Sure.”

“You don’t sound happy about those options.”

“I kinda want your sausage kale soup.”

“No problem. I’ll pick up the ingredients on my way home.”

“Thanks, Mom. You’re the best.”

She hung up the phone with a sense of anticipation. He wouldn’t always talk to her that way, would he? She had heard of teenagers verbally slicing their parents to shreds. She promised herself to never forget that sweet voice, maybe that memory could carry her through those periods of rebellion—until he learned to appreciate her again.

* * *

Tori absentmindedly loaded her produce onto the empty grocer’s conveyer belt. She tried to ignore the catty conversation between the customer in front of her and the cashier, relishing in the latest celebrity break-up.

Suddenly, the customer began pushing Tori’s produce back on the belt. Without looking up, the woman muttered, “I’m not finished.”

The middle-aged woman’s cart still contained a few items. All Tori could think was, what did that poor celery ever do to you? Tori tried to make eye contact with her, to no avail.

When the well-dressed woman finished checking out, her eyes scowled as they scanned Tori’s dirty clothes and bag.

Tori looked down. She was filthy, but nothing that sour woman could throw at her would make Tori stop smiling, or stop giving. She was finally starting to feel whole again.

When the young cashier finished checking Tori out, she held the receipt up in the air without looking away from her till. Tori waited patiently for the cashier to acknowledge her. When she finally did, Tori took her receipt, smiled, and said, “Ubuntu.”